Bruce Dickinson Thought About Quitting Iron Maiden in the ‘80s

Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson recalled the time he thought about quitting the band during its Powerslave era of 1984-85. He even thought about leaving the music industry entirely.

In a new interview with Loudwire, the singer said he had started to feel disillusioned almost a decade before he did leave the metal giants in 1993. “I did think about that, yeah,” Dickinson replied when asked about quitting music. “I was just very, very mentally exhausted by the whole … grind, if you like, of grinding out 13 months on the road with so stable social life of any description really. People say, 'Stop complaining – you’re a rock star and you make all this money.’ I said, ‘Yeah, actually, I am, but therefore if I decide to stop, it’s my choice.’ So I did think about it. … I thought there were other things, perhaps, that I could do that earned much, much less money, but would give me the same or greater level of satisfaction.”

You can watch the interview above.

Dickinson added that he was attracted to “one-on-one” roles. “That’s what excites me about anything," he noted. "It’s not the endlessly repetitive grind of doing it. ‘Off you go, there’s 300 shows.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, so what exactly do I get out of each show, apart from lots of people going yeah-yeah-yeah?' My brain’s not creaking and expanding – in fact, quite the contrary. After the first hundred or so ... There’s more to life than just that.”

He said the challenge was “getting the balance right,” explaining that "at the end of Powerslave, I just thought the balance was way out of kilter for me. We had six months off, and after six months I went, ‘You know what? Maybe I can start to see some sense of proportion here.' But it was very difficult to see how going on tour for another year at that stage in my life would be of any help to me at all.”

Dickinson left Iron Maiden in 1993, rejoining six years later. Pointing out that he had been inspired to quit by a Henry Miller quote -- “All growth is a leap in the dark” -- he explained that his attitude to taking risks was “What does this button do?” – which also happens to be the title of his recently published autobiography.